I am tremendously excited to announce that today we provided the first public preview of the new Adobe Exchange on Adobe Labs.

What is it?

The new Adobe Exchange is a Creative Suite extension marketplace. It is available as a panel within a variety of CS6 applications. The Adobe Exchange panel provides a new way to search, discover, and install plug-ins, extensions, and other content for Creative Suite products.

Isn’t there already an Adobe Exchange?

Yes, there are various product exchanges here. This new Adobe Exchange is quite different and offers a number of advantages over the existing Adobe Exchange, (detailed here). The Adobe Exchange brand name is great, but the website did not reflect the modern cloud connected world. In my experience, Creative Suite users like to work within the Creative Suite products, not jumping in and out of the browser, so the new Exchange is presented as an in-product panel.

You are the producer!

Starting today, anyone with an Adobe ID will be able to submit up to 10 free products to the new Adobe Exchange, free of charge. You can also share products privately. Due to the way Exchange products are packaged it’s a great way for individuals or organisations to share Creative Suite content and it will appear in the user’s My Stuff section of the panel and can automatically provide any new updates. The potential here is enormous. For example, sharing out an InDesign template, swatches and many other Creative Suite generated content, which you can package in minutes with Adobe Exchange Packager. This goes beyond file sharing, as it can install the content in the correct locations for use with Creative Suite 6 supported products.

Anyone looking to offer paid products via the new Adobe Exchange should sign up for the prerelease program at tinyurl.com/exchangeprerelease. There are no subscription charges for offering paid products while we are in prerelease.

This is just the beginning…

We have a lot of developments planned for the new Adobe Exchange, including Creative Cloud integration and much, much more. In the mean time, download the Adobe Exchange panel and it will automatically update as we add new capabilities.

Spread the word

I would really appreciate it if you could help spread the word about the new Adobe Exchange now that it is publicly available. Posting to blogs, social media, etc., anything you can do to help will make a difference and let people try it out for themselves. We want to build up a critical mass of Adobe Exchange users and producers creating great products.

The launch on Adobe Labs is an important first step for Adobe Exchange. Thanks for taking the journey with us.

Application updates are an almost daily ritual for me. I have a huge number of apps for my smartphone, tablet, and Desktop and it’s rare that either the operating system or an app doesn’t have an update waiting to be installed. At Adobe we are passionate about creating high quality products, so updates are key to delivering on that quality and delighting users. I mention this because updaters are troublesome. For developers, it is time away from the next major release and it can be very difficult to diagnose problems found or deal with older code. For users it seems like yet another update, often with little or no information on what the update is for. Finally, spare a thought for the IT departments, they are not dealing with a single update on a single computer but potentially thousands or tens of thousands of computers requiring that update.

One thing that various teams in Adobe are working on is getting updates out faster but also doing a better job of describing what the update does or why you should install it. There are constraints here because the longer we spend writing up the release notes the longer it can take to actually get the release out, plus we also need to do proper testing to ensure that fixing one problem or bug for example does not cause another bug elsewhere. One of the reasons I am excited by Creative Cloud is that users will see continuous updates going forward. Not just bug fixes but new features. Accounting rules for the recent Creative Suite releases meant Adobe was not able to add new features to a major product after the release as the revenue from the sale was taken up front, like most software companies. With Creative Cloud the revenue is coming on a monthly basis and we are allowed to add new features and change the product or even, as recently witnessed, increase the offering to add more products, such as Photoshop Lightroom 4, which is a new addition to Creative Cloud. As for the IT departments, there is a tool to help them with Creative Suite installation including updates, called Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition (AAMEE). It’s free and you can download all the AAMEE versions here.

Talking of updates, one of the major under the hood changes we made with Adobe Configurator 3 was to enable the application to be updated. It uses the same Adobe Application Manager as other Creative Suite/Creative Cloud products and we are looking forward to releasing the first update next month. It will have several bug fixes but also several great new features that we think users are going to love. All of the new features we will add came directly from user requests and will provide new levels of customization for Configurator created panels in Photoshop and InDesign. There will be more information about the Configurator 3.1 update soon but in the mean time, why not download Configurator 3 from Adobe Labs if you haven’t already. That way you will automatically be notified when the new update is available. The new Adobe Exchange which will soon be available on Adobe Labs and is currently available via a prerelease program, will allow producers to update their products and automatically notify users that updates are available. This is far better than the current situation where if you download a plug-in or extension for Creative Suite, the developer has to implement their own updater or the user has to find out that an update for their product is available.

Overall, updates are important and nine times out of ten they are very useful. I expect updates will only increase in frequency and importance in this cloud connected world. While it may seem like a pain at times, updates serve a purpose.

Today we released our first preview of a tool called Adobe Exchange Packager. As the name suggests this application helps you easily package your Creative Suite content or add-ons for the new Adobe Exchange. Adobe Exchange will enable developers, trainers, community experts and many others to promote, distribute, monetize and track their CS6 solutions. These products will be made available to potential customers within the ‘Adobe Exchange’ panel inside most CS6 applications. The team is actively seeking launch partners for the new Adobe Exchange and are taking applications now, for users who would like to be added into the prerelease program, before the launch this Summer. If you are interested in becoming a launch partner and getting in on this exciting opportunity early or hearing more about the program, just complete the brief Adobe Exchange Prerelease Program sign up form:

Adobe Exchange Packager joins CS Extension Builder 2 for developing engaging extensions faster and Configurator 3 which makes custom panels for Photoshop and InDesign, as tools that let you create Adobe Exchange compatible products. Now you can easily create content for the new Adobe Exchange with Adobe Exchange Packager. It generates a single file that Adobe Extension Manager uses to install files such as scripts, brushes, swatches, templates and more into the right places for Creative Suite applications.

The Adobe Exchange Panel will be made available initially on Adobe Labs in a few short weeks, so we would encourage you to sign up for the prerelease program and get your products and content ready for our planned initial public release in July.

We hope to see your products and solutions on the new Adobe Exchange soon.

CS Extension Builder 2 lets you develop for Creative Suite 5, 5.5 and 6. Creative Suite 6 products can also be sold and distributed on the new Adobe Exchange, which is coming soon. More information on that will be in my next post.

The Creative Suite SDK 2.0 was posted a few weeks ago but amongst all the CS6 and Creative Cloud launch excitement you may have missed it. It was built by the CS Extension Builder 2 team as part of the CS Extension Builder 2 release. It’s ideal for anyone interested in, or currently developing for Creative Suite and includes support for CS6. It’s free and available from the Devnet.

I wanted to make you aware of an exciting new program which Adobe will be releasing this Summer. Adobe is creating a brand new Adobe Exchange, which will enable developers, trainers, and community experts to promote, distribute, monetize and track their CS6 solutions. These products will be made visible to potential CS6 customers within the ‘Adobe Exchange’ panel in most CS6 applications. The initial CS6 products which will support the Exchange panel are:

Dreamweaver

Fireworks

Flash Professional

Illustrator

InCopy

InDesign

Photoshop

Premiere

Prelude

This program is appropriate for developers who are seeking effective and efficient ways to market and distribute free, paid, and trial items as well as deliver updates of those items to Creative Suite users. We are actively seeking launch partners for this program and are taking applications now for partners who would like to be added into our beta program. Launch partners that commit to providing distributable CS6 content in the next 8 to 10 weeks will receive valuable benefits as charter members of the new Adobe Exchange. If you are interested in becoming a launch partner and getting in on this exciting opportunity early or hearing more about the program here’s how to get started:

We plan to hold a Connect session to give you more information on Adobe Exchange. If you are interested in joining a Connect session to learn more about the program, please ensure you have signed up for the prerelease, (join here) to receive an invitation.

It’s been a busy month for Adobe’s Solutions Enablement Team, (also known as SET). In addition to releasing Extension Manager CS6 and an update, Configurator 3, CS Extension Builder 2, various components for the Creative Cloud and much more besides, there is another great product a lot of people are unaware of; Adobe Drive.

Now at version 4, it enables the seamless integration of a digital asset management (DAM) system with Adobe Creative Suite® 6 applications. Once connected to a DAM server, you can access remote assets through your operating system file browser, through Adobe Bridge, or from the menus of CS products that integrate with Drive: Adobe Photoshop®, Illustrator®, InDesign®, and InCopy®. A lot of users and developers I talk to are not aware Adobe even has this, so I wanted to share. This is a really great release of Drive.

I wanted to let you that the CS Extension Builder 2 final GM release is now available to download from the Technology Partner Program (TPP) and Adobe Enterprise Developer Program (AEDP). If you are not a member of either of these developer programs you will also be able to try/buy CS Extension Builder 2 from the Adobe Store in mid June.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the CS Extension Builder 2 Prerelease Program users. Their input created several new features and a higher quality release. We hope you enjoy it!

Recently we posted updates for various CS6 applications called CSXS Infrastructure updates via the Adobe Application Manager. Unfortunately, there was no text describing what the update was for or indeed what CSXS was. Whilst we work to add in the descriptive text to the update, I wanted to provide some brief information for those that were curious as to what the update was about.

CSXS is the platform that delivers extensibility within Creative Suite products. This update to the CSXS Infrastructure, resolves an issue where certain characters contained in a users Adobe ID caused a login failure.

It’s only a very small update but an important one, so please apply the update if you are a CS6 user, now that you know what it’s for.

Configurator 3 is now live on Adobe Labs. Configurator lets you create custom panels for Photoshop and InDesign and now supports CS6 amongst many other new features. I can think of two key uses for Configurator, the first is for custom panels with just what you want to have at your fingertips, the second and ideal for developers is creating tutorials for Photoshop and InDesign. As Configurator supports video and Web content it’s an ideal way to teach users about your Photoshop or InDesign solutions, leveraging existing content. The user gets to learn right within the product and you can build these panels in minutes.

Configurator 3 Highlights

Configurator 3 provides lots of new features and a number of improvements that focus on distribution, product compatibility, panel customization, and usability. Key features include:

Compatible with Photoshop CS5/5.1 and CS6, and InDesign CS5/CS5.5 and CS6; supports new features and automatic conversion of existing panels.

Distribute and share panels with other Creative Suite 6 users via the Adobe Exchange. Look for more information and a new Exchange panel to be available on Adobe Labs in the coming weeks.

You can find out about all the new features and download the software on Adobe Labs. Adobe Exchange is going to provide a tremendous opportunity for users and developers alike and we will be providing more information about it soon.